The present invention relates generally to electronic musical instruments and particularly concerns improved automatic accompaniment systems for electronic musical instruments.
Electronic musical instruments, most notably of the keyboard variety, which are capable of automatically playing a musical pattern or rhythm to accompany a melody played by a performer are well known in the art. The automatic accompaniment can be created in a variety of different musical styles and the instrumentation, rhythm, and chord patterns can be changed by the performer to add variety to the accompaniment. U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,601 to Hall et al. is exemplary of an electronic keyboard musical instrument having such an automatic accompaniment capability.
To add further interest to the automatic accompaniment, various special effects may be provided, such as the interruption of a rhythm pattern to insert a rhythm break, for example, a drum roll or the like. In musical performances, this type of special effect is frequently used to provide a musical accent or transition between the different parts of a song. U.S. Pat. No. 3,764,722 to Southard discloses an electronic musical instrument capable of inserting such musical breaks (sometimes called fill patterns) in automatic rhythm patterns. In the Southard system, the break is initiated by the performer operating a push-button switch, with the original rhythm pattern starting again at the end of the break. That is, the same rhythm pattern is played after the break as was played before it. This characteristic of prior art systems imposes a limitation on the variety of musical patterns which can be achieved in the creation of automatic accompaniment arrangements, and is therefore considered undesirable.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved automatic rhythm or accompaniment system for an electronic musical instrument.
It is a further object of the invention to provide for the insertion of musical break patterns in an automatic accompaniment arrangement in a manner more musically interesting than has heretofore been done.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide for the insertion of a musical break in a first automatic accompaniment pattern and subsequently resume playing a second different automatic accompaniment pattern following completion of the break.
It is still a further object of the invention to delay the playing of a musical break initiated near the end of a musical interval until the beginning of the next interval.